Brad Turing
Brad H.Turing (b. 1 April 1979) is a muggle-born wizard and the Co-Astronomy Professor here at Hogwarts. Brad is an enthusiastic and proud Hufflepuff and father to five daughters; he fairly recently came back in to contact with (twin girls), and one he adopted as his own, a young second cousin, and two other girls he adopted from an Athabascan family that had helped him greatly during his youth. It is generally not a good idea to insult Hufflepuffs when he is in earshot - which he usually is as he has a knack of popping up unexpectedly (or as the Astronomy PA's have coined "poofing"). He adores learning and teaching Astronomy to all his pupils, and growing up he had a distaste for learning wizarding history (he particularly did not like his History Professor, one of the “Senior” ranked professors) - preferring to learn muggle history once he got to Cambridge. Early Life Brad Turing was born on 1 April 1979 in Fairbanks, Alaska. He is the only child of Raymond and Deborah Turing (Schwartz), and as such was deeply loved by both his mother and father. Brad’s parents named him after his paternal grandfather. Brad’s father, Raymond, a retired police officer, spent his entire lifetime serving the community of Fairbanks. He is of English, Irish, and Native Alaskan descent, and he is a convert to Judaism. The Turing family has lived in Fairbanks for generations. Deborah Turing (nee Schwartz), Brad’s mother, was a Jewish American woman who was originally from New York City. Deborah, like many of her ancestors, served her country in the armed forces - she was an officer in the US Air Force. When she died while in the service, Brad and his father were deeply affected. His grandfather, and namesake, Brad Turing, was killed years ago while on a peaceful romantic night out with his grandmother. His family thought it was due to racism, but he later found out it was a Death Eater like group who wanted to kill a Muggle, and knew they could get away with killing him since Muggles would look the other way back then. Wizarding School Life On Brad’s eleventh birthday, a representative from the Alaskan Wizarding school (Denali Wizarding Academy) to exist visited the Turing household, and presented the family an invitation for Brad to attend it. Brad’s father Raymond was very reluctant, to the point of becoming angry at the officials. To send his only son off to some magical school, he was afraid that he would never see him again. He told these officials who came to their house that he would not be sending Brad off to their school. Ultimately, it culminated in the Wizarding school officials simply waiting until Brad was at muggle school before they came in and whisked him off to their school - they couldn’t have an underage, untrained wizard running around after all. Once at the school, Brad was happier than he had been in his entire schooling life. He missed his father of course, but overall he enjoyed the experience. Upon his return home for the first school holiday, Brad’s father was just as happy to see his son again - and even happier once he heard just how how happy Brad was at the school. He was thrilled to hear about how his son was no longer bullied as much as he had been in his muggle school, and more open to the idea of his son continuing to attend Wizarding school. Brad was involved with Quidditch, and eventually became the Seeker on this school team. Quidditch was not only a great opportunity for Brad to have a fun time, but it also brought him new opportunities - often in the most unexpected of places. During Brad’s fifth year, the Quidditch team went to the a Wizarding school in Siberia to play an exhibition game. Students from his school were allowed to visit the Siberian school to watch the game. The game went on without incident. However, in the dance that followed the game, Brad’s friend Tim got into a fight with a few of the Siberian students. Brad joined the punch-up, whooped a few of the Siberians, and - after they both went back to Alaska - ended up in detention alongside Tim. After the two had served detention together, Tim repaid the favour by teaching him how to dance, and not just any type of dancing, Tim taught Brad a traditional Athabascan dance. The two boys had to do this in secret, in the dead of night (after lights out) in the boys dormitories. Thankfully they were never caught. If they had been caught, due to racial tensions at the time, they would have received one whopper of a detention (likely from the History Professor). When some of the professors later on figured out what they had done, although they could not prove it, they were not impressed. Proof or not Brad, being the prankster he was and is, decided to teach his professors a thing or two and pranked these professors (with the help of his friend Tim of course). This bond between Tim and Brad would later strengthen as the two friends became brothers-in-law when Brad married Tim's sister Jennifer. University Life After graduating from the Alaskan Wizarding School, Brad chose to apply to several muggle universities, wanting to get out of the Wizarding world in Alaska as soon as possible. He was accepted into Cambridge where he got a B.A in History, while also taking the only Astronomy course available at the time (a basic one). While attending Cambridge Brad met Marie-Élise O'Sullivan, the mother of his daughters Karelin and Myssy She was a pureblood witch who came to Cambridge to major in Chemistry and minor in Mathematics. Following their graduation from Cambridge newly engaged and during which Marie-Élise was actually newly pregnant with Brad's daughters, the couple decided to move to Edmonton, AB in Canada where Marie-Élise was from. The couple originally planned on marrying when they turned 25, since there was a law in the Wizarding world of Canada that prohibited marriage with out parental permission while under the age of 25. Which was not going to happen with Marie-Élise's mother's attitude towards Brad, as both a muggle-born as well as an Alaskan Native. So the couple decided to simply act like they were married until the legally could be. However the stress of complications of pregnancy with triplets, and thus financial troubles, made Brad and Marie-Élise decide it would not be a good idea at the time. After the twins were born, with a particular surprise for Brad in the form of Karelin (his youngest of the twins) being a metamorphmagus. The stress and strain highlighted some of the major differences between the couple and they decided it was best that they split up. After doing a bit of soul searching and finding himself, Brad returned to Alaska - forced by the economy. He eventually found employment as a janitor at a planetarium, which was as he calls it, “a blessing in disguise”. This was because on his off days, he was able to attend planetarium showings (as many as possible). He was even given the opportunity to present occasionally when a presenter was sick. Through all of this Brad began to live by the personal motto "Fill the unforgiving minute" - meaning to try your hardest and make every second count. Eventually, he was able to start going to school part-time, while still working full-time, and managing to graduate with a degree in Astronomy. He then moved on to graduate school in Astronomy studying under Dr. Catalina Lopez. It was after giving his master's thesis on Cosmology at a conference that he met his friend Dax and was asked to come to Hogwarts to help him teach Astronomy. Several years later, upon meeting his future wife Jennifer, Brad began to build the family he had hoped to have with Marie-Élise. The couple even adopted a pair of Athabascan native girls names Clara Emma (7) and Lily Alice (2) from a family that had helped Brad out in his youth. It was not to long afterwards that Jennifer and Brad were finally married, and the ink had not had time to dry on the marriage certificate before the couple hurried off to have Brad officially adopt Clara and Lily - and they became the Turing family. Of course little did Brad know but his family was about to grow is unexpected, yet happy ways. Hogwarts Career/Life It was 2014 Brad’s friend and colleague Dax Polgara, the Head of Hufflepuff house and the Astronomy department, approached Brad while at a conference and asked him if he would accept a position helping him to teach Astronomy at Hogwarts. Brad of course accepted and traveled from Alaska to Hogwarts to do so. Brad helps Dax to manage the Astronomy department, from writing lessons, to proofreading, helping to wrangle the troublesome Astronomy PA Team (which coincidentally includes his daughters) and keeping his coffee out of the reach of the team’s coffee stealing cat Dumbledore, and glitter wielding PAs. Rumour says that he has his own stash of glitter, but none of the PAs (save for his children of course) have ever found it. He also often can be seen disappearing into the Hogwart’s kitchen’s to bake some of his delicious chocolate chip cookies, which the Astronomy PA’s love of course. Now, given Brad did not attend Hogwarts as a student, upon entering Hogwarts as a Professor he had to undergo his own sorting Ceremony, which placed him in Hufflepuff. He proudly represents and defends his house. Shortly after Brad was asked by his friend and colleague Dax to come teach Astronomy at Hogwarts alongside him another bit of news reached Brads ears. It turned out Brad was not alone, aside from his girls, within his family as a possessor of magical abilities. As it turned out Brad's mother Deborah's, sister's, daughter had a young girl who had inherited the magical gene (Brad's second cousin). Well as it turned out this younger girl was also a metamorphmagus and her parents despite vast intelligence had no real clue on raising children - much less a magical one. From what Brad was told the child (Misty) had just received her acceptance letter to Hogwarts and her parent's had decided that they could not raise her anymore. They had searched through the family tree looking for any relative that had magical blood like their little girl and had landed on Brad as the only other one. As such they contacted Brad and asked if he was willing and and able to raise a child so that her talents would not go to waste. Brad accepted the role of raising Misty and brought her to his home in Fairbanks, he was quite pleased to have a little girl around having given up is own daughters so many years ago. Little did he know the house was about to get fuller. When Brad came to Hogwarts, bringing Misty along as she was about to start her first year, he was excited to be teaching young witches and wizards Astronomy including his newly adopted daughter. Little did he know that another surprise awaited him, one that would change his life for the better. That surprise of course was when he discovered that the daughters he had left back in his university days, after the split from their mother Marie-Élise, attended the school. Of course he did not figure out that Myssy and Karelin were his children until later in the year, in fact it was Misty who helped his girls discover and piece together the identity of their father - who turned out to be Brad. It turned out that the two girls wrote an innocuous letter to their mother about Brad as just a "cool new Astronomy Professor" (both girls were Astronomy Prefects) who baked amazing cookies and loved glitter pranks. This in itself was a huge clue but it was when they mentioned Brad's name that the girl's mother became even more suspicious, and so told them of their fathers name and how she thought there was a strong chance that Brad was indeed their father. So the girls approached Brad with their place and date of birth, as well as the name that their mother had told them was their fathers name asking if he knew where their father might be. However after hearing his girls tale of their life Brad realized that these two were the twin daughters he had been forced (due to circumstances at the time) to leave behind as babies. Brad was overjoyed to finally see his daughters again, and sisters for Misty, after not having seen them since they were under a year old. So the girls wrote to their mother about finding Brad, about finding their "Da". It was then that Brad and Marie-Élise sat down to talk after such a long time. She had come to the school on the news from the girls about discovering Brad to be their father, to talk to him alone because the way their children described Brad was not at all what Marie-Élise remembered of Brad. Once the girls mother realized Brad was vastly different from the way he had been when they met, and given her recent promotion, they discussed together and with their children the possibility of the girls not only coming to live with Brad, his wife Jennifer and Misty, but also transferring custody of the girls to Brad (something Marie-Élise's mother was furious about). When the girls excitedly agreed to this, wanting to get to know their father, it was also suggested that the girls could take Brad's last name once again. The only reason they did not have it in the first place being the forced change by Marie-Élise's mother. This change also made the girls lose the middle names Brad himself had given them at birth. To this date, because it had been so many years Brad had unfortunately forgotten them. The changing of his children's name's back to his made for both legality ease, as well as a way for them to better bond as a family unit. The girls were exceptionally excited about the whole idea, and so began Brad's new life with his two amazing twin daughters, his adopted daughter Misty, his lovely wife Jennifer and brother-in-law Tim. Brad's wife Jennifer was happy with this arrangement of course, and knew of the children Brad had prior to their meeting and subsequent marriage. She was happy that Brad finally had his eldest daughters back in his life to complete their family. ' '''Powers, Abilities, Special Skills and Interesting facts '“Sneakiness”''' - Brad is known to have an uncanny ability to keep his pranks and any information he does not wish to reveal a complete secret. Even misdirecting away from the subject very well. “Poofing” - The ability to pop up/in, or poof, out of seemingly nowhere just when needed or when you think its safe to be awake when you should be sleeping. This occurs often in the Astronomy PA Tower Chat. Master of Prank’s - Everyone knows of the astronomy team's uncanny mastery of pranking but this pales in comparison to Brad Turing's prank mastery, and liking of exciting (non boring) pranks. His children have of course inherited this knack for seeking the most exciting pranks possible. Athabascan Dancing - The traditional style of dance from Brad's native heritage. Brad was taught by his best friend, and now brother-in-law Tim after lights out in school. Since being reunited with his daughters Brad has decided that they to will become acquainted with the style of dance - as well as their Athabascan cultural heritage. Amazing Baker - Brad has an amazing talent for baking, his chocolate chip cookies in particular, are legendary. Turing Family Secret Glitter Box - A secret stash of glitter the Turing family keeps hidden that no one but Brad and his daughters know the location of. It is used for glittery pranks. Family Book - 'The Turing family has actually put together a collection of stories and genealogical information on their family available to peruse in the Hogwarts library. '"Heritage, Heart and a Handful of Glitter" - The Turing Family Motto, it represents the core values of Brad's family. Belief in upholding their families Athabascan Native heritage, having love for their family as well as determination and spirit in all that they do; and finally that glitter equals happiness and that a "handful of glitter" can turn any situation right side up. Category:Muggle-born Category:Hufflepuff Category:Professor